


Lingering Shadows

by Wisperwind



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Blood, Boys Kissing, Dimensional Rift, Heartshipping, M/M, Minor Injuries, Missing Persons, Summoning, Unsafe Magical Practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisperwind/pseuds/Wisperwind
Summary: Some time after the destruction of the Millennium Items, Yugi vanishes. Ryou, who has been followed by shadows for a while now, has some very bad feelings about this, and investigates.
Relationships: Bakura Ryou/Mutou Yuugi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Heka: A Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters Fan Project





	Lingering Shadows

It’s five months after the final duel of pharaoh Atem, and the subsequent destruction of the Millenium Items when Ryou gets a call from Hiroto for the first time in his life. He knows before picking up that it’s not a social call. It’s not that he’s not friends with the man. Saving the world together and being saved from possession several times does tend to forge some rather unbreakable friendships. It’s just that Hiroto is horrible with words and prefers the ease of expressing himself in strings of emojis if he has the choice. Ryou isn’t sure if he’s trying to make their entire friend group revert to hieroglyphics on purpose, but he is at least somewhat amused by the irony. 

Phone calls however, tend to be far less amusing, and so Ryou doesn’t bother with pleasantries when he picks up.

“What is it?” he asks by way of greeting.

“Say, Bakura. Have you heard from Yugi lately?” Hiroto sounds tense, and he’s clicking his tongue impatiently while Ryou hesitates.

“Not for a few weeks now, I don’t think. I’ve been so busy I barely noticed.” Only the first part of that statement is true. He hasn’t heard from Yugi in weeks and he _has_ been busy, but he couldn’t help noticing Yugi’s absence the same way he wouldn’t have been able to miss it if the sun suddenly decided not to rise one day. “Why? Did something happen?”

“His grandpa just called Jonouchi. Said Yugi left late on Friday and he hasn’t heard from him since.” 

“Honda, it’s Monday.” Ryou growls out the words between clenched teeth. How is it that he’s always the last person to hear about it when something goes wrong?

“I know,” Hiroto says and doesn’t sound any happier about it either.

“Are you telling me that no one has seen Yugi since Friday night?” His voice has turned sharper than anyone has heard from him since the Ring was destroyed, but Ryou doesn’t care. He knows Yugi can take care of himself. He’s survived more life-, soul-, and sanity-threatening situations than any other person Ryou knows, and with the life he’s had that’s no small feat, but that doesn’t make his vanishing any less concerning.

“I- Look, Bakura, I don’t like this one bit more than you do. We all know Yugi wouldn’t just leave.

Grandpa Muto thought Yugi was staying with one of us, and that he had just forgotten to tell him but since he didn’t turn up in time to open the shop today, he got worried." 

There's a pause in which, Ryou assumes, Hiroto is rubbing the back of his head - a nervous habit. "Just- We’re looking for him. Grandpa Muto said he’ll call the police if none of us know where he is. The only one I’ve got left to check with after you is Kaiba, but Yugi is the only one of us who has his number. Unless you do?”

Another pause, this one longer. Ryou knows it’s not unlikely for Yugi to be involved in _something_ with Kaiba that would keep him busy for an entire weekend. Maybe they’d find him there and this would all be over in a few hours. Hopefully. The bad feeling in his gut makes holding onto that hope harder than it should be though.

“I don’t, but I think Ishizu does. If she doesn’t just have Jonouchi call his office and pester them until they put him through. Jou is good at not taking no for an answer.” In fact, so are any of them, but Katsuya has the best track record of getting a rise out of Kaiba, so he’d probably be the fastest.

Ryou takes a breath and thinks. Where would Yugi go? And why? Why not talk to any of them before leaving? As far as he’s aware, Yugi has never willingly left his friends behind. A shadow moves in the corner of his eye, but it’s gone as soon as he turns his head. Ryou stares at the corner in mute shock for a second, then, distantly realising that he hasn’t been listening to what Hiroto has been saying at all, he cuts through the other’s sentence. 

“I have to check something. I hope I’m wrong, but if I’m not, I think I know what happened to Yugi.”

“What?! Bakura!”

“Sorry, no time to explain! Gotta go! Call me if you find him at Kaiba’s!” He hangs up, cutting off Honda’s protesting questions mid sentence, then turns his phone to silent because he has no patience to deal with Hiroto’s protests.

 _‘Shadows_ ’, he thinks. ‘ _Will we never be rid of them?’_

* * *

  
He had been trying to ignore them, the shades and shapes at the edge of his vision, never quite clear enough to be seen. Dark shadows at the brink of being real, never there long enough to be seen, but appearing often enough to be concerning. He had wanted to ask Yugi about them when they last spoke. He had wanted to ask if Yugi could see them too, but he didn't because Ryou didn't know how he would deal with knowing that he is going insane - or worse, knowing that he isn't.

  
Now he is getting the impression that he really should have brought this up when he had the chance.

Cursing under his breath he dials Yugi’s number. He doesn’t really know why. If Yugi didn’t pick up the phone for Katsuya or his Grandpa then there’s little chance he’ll do so for Ryou, and indeed the call goes through to voicemail after a few rings.

Ryou hangs up without leaving a message, unsure of what to say. He stands there, in the living room of his empty flat, staring at the wall and trying hard to keep his emotions under control.

He needs to know where Yugi is. He needs Yugi to be safe. He needs to wrap himself around Yugi like a blanket and hold him close, listen to his heart beating and be sure that he’s real and alive and breathing and he needs these things to happen now.

He needs to be wrong about his assumptions regarding shadow magic. 

He needs Yugi, because there is no one else in the world who knows what it is like to backseat drive your own body while something who is you and also isn’t, does things you have no control over. No one aside from Marik, who is an ocean and seven time zones away. And Marik doesn’t know about most of the things the Thief King did, doesn't know half the things Ryou let happen. 

How he thought himself cursed because wherever he went, people would fall into comas and never wake up again. How he kept moving from town to town, school to school, always hoping he could outrun the damage that followed in his footsteps. He had carried the Ring for years before meeting Yugi, the pharaoh, and their friends. Years of anguish and self-doubt before finally meeting someone strong enough to help him break the hold of the Thief King. Even if it had been only temporary back then.

And now the Ring is destroyed, the Thief King is gone, and Ryou is free and he owes more to Yugi than anyone else. He will not let Yugi vanish, not like this, he decides. Not until he knows for sure what’s going on. Not before he’s sure that Yugi is safe and sane and whole, wherever it is he’s gone to. 

  
He wants to be wrong about his assumptions regarding shadow magic.

But wanting, while often a deciding factor in many spells, does little on its own and nothing at all right now. So Ryou does his best to snap himself out of his emotional spiraling, gathers what supplies he still has, and heads for the basement.

* * *

Ryou has never willingly touched dark magic in his life. Ironically enough, it conflicts with his nature.

Shadow magic was more thrust upon him than something he actively chose, and when he started his own research into spellcraft, he went looking for protection spells and counter-curses, rather than hexes and curses. He knows about them, though. His research was thorough. It had to be, seeing as he spent 10 years of his life thinking he was cursed. 

He sets up the candles, prepares the herbs, choses and places the crystals in a configuration that would most likely make no sense to anyone else, paints a few sigils on his altar in purple ink. He lets himself be guided by instinct rather than knowledge. He knows what he wants, but isn’t entirely sure how to get there. His hands work almost with a mind of their own, and Ryou is powerless and unwilling to stop them.

The spell he’s attempting is stupid. Well, no, the spell itself isn’t. Ryou is, for attempting it. He knows it’s stupid and dangerous and that he should hope for it to fail because suceeding in this would be terrifying, but he does it anyway. For Yugi.

He’s always been a little stupid when Yugi is involved.

There is no incantation for this, though he’s sure he could make one up if he gave himself the time. It’s not necessary. Intent is what's opening the path.

Ryou looks at his haphazard arrangement, and he can read the desperation in every stroke of it but, well. He wasn’t going for subtlety in the first place.

“Talk to me,” he whispers under his breath and focuses on the shadows creeping closer from every corner of the room.  
He closes his eyes and opens himself to anything that might come calling.

* * *

There are some very basic rules to magic. 'Do not experiment with spells unless you have a way to neutralise the results' is one. 'When trying to contact spirits or other beings, be specific in your questions and requests, lest you be tricked' is another. 'Do not summon something unless you know what you're summoning and always have an appropriate banishing spell ready for emergencies', and 'Never attempt magic while in an unstable frame of mind' are rather important, too. Breaking these rules is how you get yourself cursed, usually. Or worse.

Ryou knows these things, in theory, and is usually very diligent in following the rules. What he practices is protection magic, which, if it fails and inverts, can be devastatingly destructive.

But.

But Yugi is missing and it feels like there is a hole in the fabric of the universe because of it. So

Ryou is being stupid and recless and he doesn’t care.

“That,” says a voice from behind him. “Was an extremely stupid thing to do.”

The figure behind him has no shape. It looks like a column of smoke, lit by purple fire, with eyes glowing like burning coals floating at about the height of Ryou’s shoulder.

“Yes,” he agrees, “but it worked. You’ve been trying to talk to me ever since I returned from Egypt. You and the others. That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” the column makes a strange twisting motion that Ryou interprets as a nod. “It was us. You are lucky it was me who heard your call first. The others might have been less… careful.”

No, opening a summoning circle and inviting anyone who felt like it to manifest in his basement, hadn’t exactly been a safe choice. He’d taken a leap of faith on the assumption that the shadows that were following him would be the first to react, and that they were not out to harm him. It worked, but he could have easily summoned something far more hostile.

“I think I know what you are. I think you’ve been following me because you need help and that, if you are following me, you must have tried to reach Yugi in the same way. Am I wrong?”

“What do you think we are?” the shade asks and Ryou glances at his duel deck, that’s sitting in the centre of the altar.

“I think you are card spirits, or spirits from the Realm of Shadows, maybe. I think that when we destroyed the Millenium Items, we didn’t really know if there would be any consequences but you’ve been here since about that time so it would make sense.”

“Yes,” the spirit says simply. “It looks like you didn’t think that one through either.”

“Where is Yugi? Do you know? Because there is no way that he would not try and fix whatever it is we broke as soon as he found out about it.”

“The other one has promised us his aid. He followed us to where he was needed.”

Ryou doesn't hesitate a second.

"Take me to him."

He gets the sinking feeling that the smoke might be smirking at him, then it comes rushing at him and everything goes dark.

* * *

The Realm of Shadows is not a physical place, it is a metaphysical plane of existence. This being the case, Ryou doesn’t so much go there, as he is violently astral-projected into a void of darkness only to crash down on the other side in front of a golden loom. It’s a rather disorienting experience, or would be, were his life any more normal than it actually is.

So, instead of losing his cool and screaming like a regular person would, Ryou picks himself up from what he assumes is the ground, shakes his head like a dog and takes in where he has landed. The sky is purple, and so is the scenery. There are swirls of black and gold streaked through everything and there is nothing to see anywhere, not even a horizon. Except for the loom. And weaving at the loom sits someone, a figure, it’s-

“Yugi!”

Yugi doesn’t look up but Ryou is at his side in less than a second and what he sees when he looks over Yugi’s shoulder makes his blood freeze. Yugi’s hands are bloody, cut by unwilling threats and the sharp edges of the tear that Yugi is trying to mend.

He’s trying to darn the fabric of reality. Suddenly, it all makes sense. When they destroyed the Items they didn’t close the Realm of Shadows. They destroyed the bridges between their world and this one, and it left behind a gaping wound through which shadows had leaked into their world. Yugi had realised this and now he was here, trying to weave a barrier where none had been since Akhenaden had created the Items. Where none had been even before.

“Yugi, you have to stop,” but it is as if Yugi cannot hear him. His hand grasps another threat and he doesn’t even flinch when it cuts him across the back of it.  
“YUGI!” Ryou screams, but there isn’t so much as a twitch and it’s clear that it’s not just determination that is keeping Yugi from diverting his attention.   
Ryou does the only thing he can think of, takes Yugi by the shoulders, turns him around and kisses him.

For a few seconds, it feels like he’s kissing a doll. Yugi is unresponsive and unmoving but he’s not cutting his hands open and bleeding all over the fabric of reality anymore, so Ryou counts that as a win. It only lasts a moment though, and then arms wrap around his shoulders and Yugi is kissing him back.  
Yugi. Is. Kissing. Him. Back.

It’s such a soft feeling that it’s almost jarring, contrasted with the desperation and urgency that’s still humming in Ryou’s bones. It doesn’t take him long to melt into the feeling though, and his hands wander from Yugi’s shoulders to his small of his back, to press them closer together, if only for a second.

Sadly, a second is all the time they have before Yugi pulls back slightly and the reality of their situation comes crashing back down on both of them.  
“Ryou. What are you doing here?” he asks, eyes wide and face still flushed from their kiss.

“You vanish off the face of the earth for three days and you think no one is going to come after you? Seriously, Yugi? I thought you knew your friends better than that by now,” Ryou wants to sound pissed, feels like he should be. He’s had more than enough of being pushed to the sidelines and being treated like he can’t handle himself. Yugi’s martyr complex is frustrating to everyone around him but Ryou is hurt by it especially, because the lack of communication feels like a lack of trust. But with Yugi blushing in his arms after kissing him, he finds that the anger won’t come.

Yugi laughs sheepishly in response. “Yeah, I guess I should have known better. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, I just bet you are,” Ryou huffs, “but we can talk about that later. First, this needs fixing.” He gestures to the loom and the fabric on it. Of course, what is strung on the loom is not a real textile, merely a representation, that can only exist and be worked on in a place like this, that itself is not real, not physical.

Yugi looks at the loom where the threads have begun to unravel again as soon as he stopped working on them. “I thought I could patch it up but that’s not the answer, is it? There was never meant to be a barrier between here and our world. There wasn’t before the creation of the Millenium Items. They were just made as-”  
“-As a gateway,” finishes Ryou for him. “Yeah. We can’t separate two worlds that have been so closely linked for millennia but we can’t let this-” he gestures at the loom “-keep unraveling either or soon there won’t be two seperate worlds at all.”

“We need a new gate,” says Yugi and he looks immeasurably sad while he does. “You know the last gateway was created with a blood sacrifice.”

Ryou knows. He still has nightmares about what happened to Kul Elna. They aren’t his nightmares, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference. It is what is needed though. A door between worlds that can be opened and shut, but which still allows a connection to exist. Their worlds are too closely linked to be divided, but too different to just leave a rip in the divide, to let one spill into the other unchecked.

Akhenaden had wanted the control over the gate to strengthen his own power, and he had sacrificed the lives of those he deemed worthless to achieve this end. Ryou looks at Yugi and he knows with the same absolute certainty of gravity, of the sunrise, of his love for this man, that what they will build now will be different.

“A life must be sacrificed, but you don’t need to die to give your life for something.”

An understanding passes between them that Ryou cannot explain but somehow he knows what to do. He knows that what they will do now is Right. He’s ready and he’s willing. If Yugi and he can solve this, if they can help, then there is no other option. They will help. No matter what it will cost them.

They lift the fabric off the loom. The loom itself vanishes as soon as it is no longer needed, and Ryou and Yugi place the fabric on the ground, straighten it out and stand on either side of the tear.

Yugi grasps half of the unraveled strings in one hand, and Ryou’s hand in the other, and Ryou follows his lead, doing the same. They wrap the strings around their clasped hands, once, twice, three times and then tie them off. This time they do not cut. They settle quietly into this new shape, a new connection bound together but still not one. A handfasting between him and Yugi and the border between two worlds.

When they release their grip the fabric shifts. The strings move on their own and the fraying edges stitch themselves together, leaving behind a smooth and even hem. Both Ryou and Yugi have two strings attached to them. One leading from their wrists to the newly finished hem, the other linking them to each other. There is a new door between worlds now. It is them.

They share a look. It’s time to go home.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of the HEKA fan project, which is a free PDF you can download at hekazine.tumblr.com. Please check it out if you liked this story and want to see more like it! I promise it looks so much better in the PDF then it does here.


End file.
